Article
Brady / Driscoll / Gregorius

Albums
3/4 Peace
36
Atrium Carceri
Marvin Ayres
Peter Baumann
Beledo
Tim Brady
Christoph Bruhn
Calder
Csillagköd
Dal Niente / Deerhoof
Rebekah Driscoll
Eighth Blackbird
frostlake
Friedrich Goldmann
John Gregorius
Hammock
Chihei Hatakeyama
Masayuki Imanishi
ICE
Ionophore
braeyden jae
KAI
Kevin Kastning
Martin Kay
Kireyev & Javors
Millimetrik
Jon Mueller
Christine Ott
Piano Interrupted
Noah Preminger
Gavin Prior
Rapoon
Lasse-Marc Riek
Roach & Logan
Bruno Sanfilippo
Cyril Secq / Orla Wren
Sgt. Fuzzy
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith
Stick Men+ David Cross
Stratosphere
Syncopix
Tetherdown
Charlie Ulyatt
Wieman

Compilation
Facticity

EPs / Cassettes / Mini-Albums / Singles
Glacis
Dibson T. Hoffweiler
Akira Kosemura
Daniel Lippel
Christine Tavolacci

Glacis: Love, If You Love Me, Lie Beside Me Now
Tavern Eightieth

Love, If You Love Me, Lie Beside Me Now presents a disarmingly lovely collection of solo piano pieces composed and performed by Euan Alexander Millar-McMeeken under the Glacis name; if the name rings a bell, it might be because the Edinburgh, Scotland-based pianist also operates as one-half of Graveyard Tapes. Issued on the Finnish label Tavern Eightieth (in a 100-copy run), the twenty-three-minute release was produced by Ben Chatwin (Talvihorros) and René Gonzalez Schelbeck (Western Skies Motel), the latter also featured on three of the six tracks. In addition, Alan McCormack (Now Wakes The Sea) and William Ryan Fritch appear on a single track apiece, but in all cases but Fritch's the guests' contributions are tantamount to near-subliminal textural enhancements or what one might call ambient tinting. The multi-tracked cello Fritch adds to “There is Nothing, Yet I am Here,” on the other hand, is very much conspicuous and gloriously so.

The opening “No One can Reach us Now, or Ever” is especially beautiful, a haunting piano ballad rich in melancholy and rendered with sensitivity and deep feeling by the pianist. The intimate character of the project is also bolstered by an occasional ambient noise that creeps into the recording, a case in point the creaking sounds that appear alongside McMeeken's affecting piano melodies in “Love, if You Love Me” (in such a case, it's conceivable that a blindfolded listener might identify the artist as Goldmund rather than Glacis). Oddly, the piano playing in “Under the Arc of the Sky” warbles ever so slightly, sounding at times a bit waterlogged, after which “There is Nothing, Yet I am Here” brings the EP to an uplifting close with Fritch's cello a powerful second voice. Irony feels light years away during such performances.

For whatever reason, McMeeken has a thing for EPs, with Love, If You Love Me, Lie Beside Me Now following upon earlier ones on Fluid Audio, mini50 records, and Soft Corridor Records, but that's certainly no cause for complaint: a fifth of equal calibre to the fourth would be a more than welcome addition to the series.

May 2016